In Guatemala Today

In the highlands of Guatemala it’s one volcano after another.  Of course, they are all extinct.  For now.  And the tourist hotels are conveniently located to give a good view of the nearby volcano.  Volcanoes do look cute—until it rains an they let loose a mudslide.

Since Guatemala has been a pawn in US politics over recent decades, with poster girl Rigoberta Menchu as a victim of US imperialism, you have to go there to get a decent picture of what it’s really like.

And what it’s really like is a country in the middle of the flight from the land.  Guatemala City is growing like mad, up to 3.5 million in a country of 14 million, and the “chicken buses” (converted US school buses) race up and down the Panamerican Highway at top speed from Chichicastenanga in the rural Mayan heartland to Guatemala City and back and for less than a buck a ride.

It’s like any third world country.  Part rural, with women wearing traditional clothes, and part urban with restless young men driving around like maniacs.

And it’s ten years since the government and the rebels signed a peace treaty ending 30 years of civil war.  Which is about par for the course.  They say that your average serious civil war takes about thirty years, enough to consume two generations of hot-heads in the refiner’s fire of war.

Today there are horrific tales of armed robberies in Guatemala City, and stern warnings from guides about pickpockets in the market.  But people are building and working and going to school in Guatemala.  It’s the restless energy of humankind that cannot be denied for long.